The disclosure relates to a glove dispenser. Specifically, it relates to an electro-mechanized glove dispenser for dispensing gloves for use in surgical, medical, or dental applications, but is not limited to those applications.
Individuals in the health care or dental industry regularly don disposable gloves in order to prevent the transmission of bacteria or other contaminants to themselves and to patients. In certain cases, the disposable gloves are typically contained within, and dispensed from, a box or container. When donning a pair of gloves dispensed in this manner, a user typically grasps a glove and pulls the glove from the box using an uncovered hand. Once removed from the box, the user places the glove onto one of his uncovered hands. The user can then use his now covered hand to grasp and remove a second glove from the box and then place the second glove upon his ungloved hand. This of course affects the sterility of the gloves which may contaminate the gloves and cause potential issues for the patent or glove wearer.
There are also a number of dispensing devices which are well known for dispensing and cutting webs or rolls of material such as paper toweling. With such dispensers, the process of dispensing and cutting the material is carried out automatically by a user pulling on the free end of the material that extends from a dispensing slot in the apparatus. In a typical configuration, the web material is engaged against a rough friction enhancing surface of a feed drum and the action of pulling the web tail causes the drum to rotate. The drum includes a drive mechanism and, after the initial pull on the web tail by a user, the drum is driven a predetermined rotational degree to dispense a metered amount of the material. These types of dispensers are commonly referred to as “no-touch” or “sanitary” dispensers because the user does not manually operate any portion of the drive or cutting mechanism. The user only touches the tail end of the material.
There is a need for a glove dispenser which utilizes the “no touch” concept discussed above for dispensing gloves by using a roll system of gloves activated by a proximity sensor and a mechanism of dispensing of gloves based on a rotation engine which an electric motor driven by an electronic circuit fed by a battery bank or any electric power supply. The rotation engine can also be driven by the movement of a knob or similar manual device. Gloves are thereby dispensed from a roll at the bottom of the dispenser. The roll of gloves can be replaced on either the side or on the top of the cover.
Thus, there is a need for a glove dispenser which overcomes the above-mentioned difficulties and others while providing better and more advantageous results.